Mixed fortunes – The story of Celtic v Aberdeen Scottish Cup Final clashes

The Celtic Star

·22 May 2025

Mixed fortunes – The story of Celtic v Aberdeen Scottish Cup Final clashes

Celtic face Aberdeen in Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final and it will be the eighth such occasion the two clubs have met at Scottish football’s showpiece match with Celtic so far having the edge on head-to-head victories by four to three…

Hampden Park ahead of Celtic 2024 Scottish Cup final win over theRangers. Photo The Celtic Star

Hopefully that is stretched to five three come Saturday evening rather than the dreaded prospect of Aberdeen levelling up at four each to deny Celtic a Treble and give Brendan Rodgers his first ever taste of defeat at the National Stadium.

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The first time the two clubs faced off for the famous old trophy was back in 1937 in front of a still world record to this day crowd for a domestic final as a whopping 147,365 watched on as Celtic triumphed 2-1 courtesy of goals from Johnny Crum and Willie Buchan as the hoops won the Scottish Cup for the 15th time.

There were no ballots, home cup ticket scams, sorry schemes, back in those days and supporters could go to Hampden, pay their money and watch their team play in the Scottish Cup Final. And while on this point, why did the capacity at Hampden get cut to 50,000 which is nowhere near enough on so many occasions. Last year’s cup final could easily have had 100k fans in there.

We would face the Dons 17 years later in 1954 and we triumphed once again in a 2-1 win thanks to an Alex young OG and Sean Fallon strike which earned us a domestic double.

The next showdown between the two sides in the showpiece final was in 1967 when a Willie Wallace brace in a 2-0 win ensured us a domestic treble in a very special campaign.

There wasn’t long to wait for the next meeting between the sides three years later in the 1970 final, although it was a miserable one for us as the Dons won by three goals to one to overcome us for the first time ever at this stage in the competition. The refereeing that day would have embarrassed even the honest mistake mob of more recent years.

Fourteen years later we suffered defeat at the hands of Alex Ferguson Dons side who prevailed 2-1 after extra time with a winning goal courtesy of future Celt Mark McGhee. We faced an uphill task after Roy Aitken controversially became the first man to be sent off in a Scottish cup final at a stage we were already a goal down. We did however rally and a late Paul McStay equaliser forced extra time, but it just wasn’t to be.

Six years later the two sides met in the final yet again and after an uneventful 120 minutes which ended goalless, for the first ever time the destiny of the Scottish Cup would be settled by a penalty shootout.

If the match was something of a damp squib then the shootout was anything but as the Dons yet again prevailed in a 9-8 win to take the trophy back to Pittodrie.

We would have to wait another 27 years to face the Pittodrie outfit at the final stage and it was one that we would all saviour and one that will undoubtedly go down as one of the most iconic moments in our history.

With extra time looming Tom Rogic produced a moment of magic when he slotted home to win the game and clinch an Invincible treble right at the end of the game. It was the stuff of dreams to win us a clean sweep of domestic honours, let’s hope for a similar outcome on Saturday.

Or better still we’d all love to see a re-run of the Premier Sports League Cup semi-final when the two sides met last November and Celtic hit them for six to burst Jimmy Thelin’s bubble.

Imagine matching or breaking the record score for a major final at Hampden, which was back on 19 October 1957 when Celtic won the League Cup for the second time beating Rangers 7-1 in the final.

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Mixed fortunes – The story of Celtic v Aberdeen Scottish Cup Final clashes | OneFootball